Riverain Patents Imaging Methods with Potential Benefits for Medical, Military and Travel Industries

Riverain Technologies, a company that specializes in proprietary image processing and machine learning technology, announced that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has awarded the company broad patents for its technologies. Riverain has been issued U.S. Patent 8,204,292 for its methodology to selectively remove unwanted objects or features within images. The technology is used in the company’s premier software, ClearRead Bone Suppression™, which suppresses the ribs and clavicles in a chest X-ray image resulting in the formation of a soft tissue image of the chest. The application provides radiologists with a clearer, unobstructed view of the chest to aid in early detection of lung disease, including lung cancer. Possible applications exist within other imaging modalities including CT, MRI, positron emission tomography (PET), full field digital mammography and tomosynthesis. The methodology has been successfully applied to remove and equalize the tissue in the pectoral muscle in a mammography image. Riverain’s patented feature suppression technology is ideal for use in a variety of industries outside medical, including; military, travel, industrial and document processing applications. In addition, Riverain was issued U.S. Patent 8,160,335 for its proprietary Computer-Aided Diagnosis (CAD) methodology on software or hardware derived images, such as dual energy subtracted soft tissue images and/or bone suppressed images. The technology is used in the company’s ClearRead +Detect™ software, an application that identifies and circles potentially cancerous lung nodules on a bone-suppressed chest X-ray image, and/or images captured by modalities such as dual energy subtraction (DES). According to the press release, ClearRead +Detect has been clinically proven to improve the detection of 9-30mm lung nodules and allow the detection of up to 1 in 2 previously missed lung nodules.